


never bury my bones apart from yours

by exbeekeeper



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crimson Flower, M/M, patrochilles au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28280244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbeekeeper/pseuds/exbeekeeper
Summary: Felix glances down at Areadbhar, gripped in his hand, and sighs. “Should we have let the people of Fhirdiad suffer for his stubborn pride, then?” he says.Ingrid’s mouth twists. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” She sighs. “It isn’t noble to die disobeying orders.”“Then I’ll stop talking and stand taller,” Felix says, “and you can pretend you really think I’m him. It’s what everyone else is doing.”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: 2020 Dimilix Exchange





	never bury my bones apart from yours

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the 2020 dimilix holiday exchange. i hope you enjoy it <3

“Dimitri.” 

Dimitri sighs, casts his gaze back toward Felix. The wind on the balcony is often strong, but tonight it is worse, as if the very sky knows what is to come. It lifts Dimitri’s hair off his shoulders and out of his eyes, sends goosebumps down the exposed nape of his neck. 

“My mind is made up, Felix,” he says, tiredly. 

Felix makes a frustrated sound. “If we don’t cut them off at Arianrhod they’ll bring the battle here to Fhirdiad, Dimitri. People will _die._ ” 

“That woman is _plotting against me,_ Felix.” Dimitri whirls around to face his oldest friend, his eyes piercing Felix clean through. “You would have me aid her? Play into her hands?” 

“I would have you _protect your people,_ Dimitri. You’re letting your pride blind you to what’s important. Are you a king, or aren’t you?” 

Dimitri makes a fist with his hand, slams it backward into the railing. The ancient stone groans in protest. “I _am,_ and that is _exactly_ why I won’t hear any more of this. My decision is _final._ Rhea can burn at Arianrhod, and we will wait to destroy my stepsister when she arrives. Now _leave me._ ”

Felix purses his lips angrily, then turns and strides out of the room without another word. When Dimitri remembers this moment, he will think that Felix’s acquiescence should have set off alarm bells in his head all on its own. Instead, he sags against the railing, buries his face in his hands. 

The next morning starts as his mornings always do. Dimitri wakes with the sun after a few fitful hours of sleep, drinks the medicinal tea Dedue promises helps even when Dimitri cannot see it, dresses himself more plainly than his advisors would like. 

When he enters the main hall, Sylvain is gripping the edge of the table, brow furrowed in distress. The messenger before him looks… apologetic, distressed as Sylvain speaks to her in a low, strained voice. It puts Dimitri on edge. Sylvain looks up and stops dead when Dimitri enters, before Dimitri can parse what he’s saying, and the messenger pales further when she sees him. 

“What’s going on? Sylvain?” Dimitri says, striding over to take the missive from him. 

“Your Majesty,” Sylvain says, haltingly. “The army is–”

Whatever Sylvain says after that, it’s drowned out by the sudden roaring in Dimitri’s ears. The missive in his hands is … actually barely a missive at all. It reads more like a letter, if anything, and the handwriting is instantly familiar. 

_Your Majesty,_

_If you’re going to blame someone for this, blame Felix._

_Well, not that I truly believe either of us will be here for you to blame come nightfall today._

_He and I are leading the soldiers to Arianrhod. I’m sorry. Felix and I bicker, but neither of us are willing to allow harm to come to the people of Fhirdiad._

_Sylvain – sorry for leaving you. Felix says you’re too loyal not to wake Dimitri up immediately, and I agree. But I also think he’ll need someone._

_Dimitri – I love you. He loves you._

_He wants me to tell you we’ll see you on the other side._

_I.B.G._

Dimitri’s hands shake. Sylvain puts up a hand, cautious. “Dimitri?” 

“We’re going after them,” Dimitri hears himself say. “We have to. I–” 

***

The wind at Arianrhod is almost unbearable. Felix recalls it from when he was a child, the four of them running carefree through its walls while their fathers spoke of conquest and challenge in the war rooms. 

Clad in Dimitri’s ancestral armor, Felix barely feels the chill at all. The fur blocks it out, and the helm firmly on his head only serves to keep his thoughts rattling dangerously around in his skull. Ingrid watches him, concern on her face. 

“It will be hard to defeat them without Sylvain and his Majesty,” she says, for probably the thirtieth time that morning. “Especially if you’re using a weapon you don’t favor that your Crest won’t even activate.” 

Felix glances down at Areadbhar, gripped in his hand, and sighs. “Should we have let the people of Fhirdiad suffer for his stubborn pride, then?” he says. 

Ingrid’s mouth twists. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” She sighs. “It isn’t noble to die disobeying orders.” 

“Then I’ll stop talking and stand taller,” Felix says, “and you can pretend you really think I’m him. It’s what everyone else is doing.” 

Ingrid doesn’t have a response for that, so Felix lets it hang in the air for a moment before sweeping past her, down the stairs to where Rhea and his father are waiting. 

He knows, after all, that neither of them truly believe he’s Dimitri. They’re built too differently, and besides Rodrigue, for all his faults, knows how Felix carries himself. Rodrigue’s gaze lands heavily on him; Felix avoids meeting it. He avoids Ingrid’s concerned glances, avoids Rhea’s impassive stare. 

He avoids everyone’s eyes until he takes to the battlefield and meets Byleth’s eyes head on. They’re more evenly matched than they ever were back at the academy, but the lance isn’t Felix’s preferred weapon, and the professor cuts him down eventually. His blood stains Dimitri’s beautiful armor crimson. 

***

Dimitri and Sylvain make it to Arianrhod in far less time than it would normally take. The horses are exhausted, they’re exhausted, and Dimitri doesn’t even have the spear that comes alive in his hands. He’d been half-frantic and half-furious when he realized Felix had assumed his guise in order to lead the soldiers out in the wee hours of the morning, but all that has ebbed during the journey into a deep and persistent sorrow, a misery at a loss not yet felt in full. 

Felix does not know Dimitri loves him. Not properly. Or perhaps he does – Felix had always been able to read Dimitri well, after all – but they’d never said it, so it amounts to the same thing, in the end. The things left unsaid between them now threaten to choke Dimitri. 

It’s already too late when they arrive. Arianrhod is crawling with enemy forces. Sylvain stops beside him, staring over his shoulder at the great Imperial banners now hanging from those familiar stone walls. 

“I never thought Arianrhod would fall,” Sylvain says. 

Dimitri clenches his teeth. “I’m going to take it back.”

“What? Your Majesty, that’s–”

“They’re in there. They have to be. I won’t give her their bodies.” 

Sylvain looks at him in alarm. “Whoa, we can’t just assume they’re dead. They could–” 

“Do you honestly believe either of them would ever retreat?” Dimitri snorts. “Don’t make me laugh. Perhaps there are survivors – perhaps _Lady Rhea_ fled when the tide turned – but our Felix and Ingrid would never be among them.”

Sylvain falls silent. Dimitri knows he wishes he could argue. He also knows Sylvain is too loyal to lie to him, so he will say nothing. 

Dimitri dismounts. “I will find Areadbhar,” he says, “and my armor. And I will tear them all apart for this.” 

“I’m not leaving you,” Sylvain insists. 

Dimitri regards him. “Then the four of us shall perish the same.” 

There’s something almost morbid about the familiarity of searching across this particular field for Felix and Ingrid as the sun sets. They were always the smaller two of their quartet, adept at squeezing themselves beneath bushes and between columns and staying very quiet until Sylvain loudly threatened to eat their dinners. 

They won’t come running out, now. Dimitri picks his way across the field, the blood and gore soaking through the leather of his boots. Dimitri hears when Sylvain finds Ingrid. Felix isn’t far, and he’s not difficult to spot, after that. 

Felix’s hair has come out of its usual tie and is matted, stuck to the side of his head with blood. That blow – the one that killed him, Dimitri imagines, wonders – caves in part of his skull and drips blood onto the fur of his stolen cloak. His body is rigid, hand curled loosely around Areadbhar. 

Wordlessly, Sylvain helps Dimitri remove the stolen armor, dress himself in it. Felix’s blood still mats the fur on the cloak. Dimitri thinks it should make him feel sick, but there’s nothing but the numbness. 

Dimitri cracks Areadbhar against the stone of the fortress’ gate. It isn’t until he sees Edelgard’s face that the rage hits him. Although they are only two, Dimitri and Sylvain take out wave after wave of Imperial soldiers. The professor intervenes, eventually, evidently having been startled out of mealtime for this. 

He’s proud of the fight they give her, and yet Sylvain still falls, body splashing into the mud next to Ingrid’s. 

There’s pity in the professor’s eyes when their sword cuts clean through his shoulder. They say something, then, but he doesn’t hear it, eyes focused only on the three of them. On Sylvain and Ingrid, lifeless. On Felix, whom he loved, whom he never told. 

Dimitri staggers toward them as he bleeds out, collapsing over the body that was Felix. 

“Felix,” Dimitri mumbles. “Felix.” 

In the end, as in the beginning, it is the four of them, together on that field – the two of them, curled together in death. 


End file.
